And a Dark Wind Blows
by RazedRainbow
Summary: Was it a magical spell gone awry? An angry god laying waste upon a world that had forgotten him? A long and bloody war? An incurable disease? Fluttershy couldn't remember what it was that had turned the world to this. All she knew was that she had to survive.


The forest was gloomy and devoid of life, save for two gleaming eyes peeking through a hole in the brush.

Nature taunted Fluttershy from all sides. Gusts of wind rustled the leaves, which in turn tickled her nose. Talon-like branches writhed in the breeze, curling menacingly, their shadows stretching out until their sharpened tips were set directly over her heart. All the while, the timber groaned and a ghostly howl permeated the black night.

But Fluttershy didn't breathe, blink, or flinch. She merely sat still and alert, like a mouse hiding from a hawk. The wind died down just enough for the sound of snapping twigs to float through the woods. Her wings twitched once and a weight built in her gut.

The snaps were faint, yet close enough to get her heart racing. The gears in her head turned so fast that she bet smoke could have been billowing out her ears. It could be anything: the wind, a pinecone falling out of a tree, or just a figment of her imagination.

Or it could be Him.

The idea wasn't a new one; she wouldn't be hiding in the bushes, unblinking and barely breathing, if not for a shaky voice in the back of her head telling her that this could be where He could be. It made sense for Him to be out here. It was perfect hunting weather, and this was the perfect hunting ground: dark, quiet, secluded, and full of flesh and blood. She should have stayed inside.

She wrestled her frenzied mind back into reality, and listened for the steps once more. Each snap threatened to deafen her. If her fears rang true, she would be able to see Him any second now. First, He would appear in the form of a creeping shadow, barely discernible from the trees. Then there would be His eyes, wide as they reflected the darkness and madness back at her. By then it would be too late. She couldn't afford to wait that long.

Slowly and quietly, she leaned down towards her flank and wrapped her chapped, quivering lips around a wooden handle. She pulled it out, inch by inch, and soon the rusted dagger was free from its sheath. Her tongue tapped against the whittled birch and her breathing grew heavy.

She closed her eyes and counted to ten, hoping that when she opened them she would be in the middle of a daisy patch, surrounded by hundreds of fluffy bunnies, not a twig or claw or dagger in sight. The only taste would be that of the spring air and maybe a hint of marigolds. She let out a deep breath and opened her eyes. She might as well have been staring at the insides of her eyelids; they were far brighter than this.

A gust of wind blew a strand of oily pink mane over her face, and it stuck to her like a piece of tape. Without thinking, she raised a forehoof to brush it away, and sliced her leg open on the jagged blade. She dropped the knife and fell back on her haunches, a frail whimper escaping her lips. Her hooves clasped over her mouth, but the sound had already been uttered and faded, and her eyes grew wide as she heard the sounds of twigs shattering under heavy steps, growing closer and closer by the second.

"No," was all she could murmur. Nowadays, that word was as common as a breath or a blink.

She leaned down and rubbed her hooves against the musty floor like a pony searching for a diamond in an ocean of dirt. The steps grew closer, heavier. Fluttershy swore she could hear the sound of His rough breathing. Her hoof made contact with something that felt like it could be the handle of her knife and she leaned down to pick it up.

It was too late.

The sounds were upon her now, loud as a tornado and just as bone chilling. She could feel His hot, rancid breath blowing against her face. This was it.

She closed her eyes...

And the sound passed right over her.

The steps were far away by the time Fluttershy opened her eyes again. She arched an eyebrow and was about to mutter in confusion, but she thought better of it. He could hear her, turn around, and have His teeth sunk into her neck before she could scream. He had misjudged her location; that was the only answer she could think of. Her ears perked up again, and she listened closely. The sound was gone—the creature with it—and Fluttershy was left to cradle her bleeding foreleg in complete solitude. Not even the hoot of an owl graced her ears.

With a noise that was something between a whine and a groan, she rose onto her three good legs. She retrieved her dagger and began to sheathe it. Under the pale rays she could see the tenebrous liquid trickling down the blade. She groaned and fell back on her haunches, listlessly shoving it into its scabbard. A breeze blew through the woods, stinging her wound.

A flap of her wings, and she hovered back through the brush. She pushed the low-lying branches out of her way with her her good forehoof while she let the injured one hang limp like a wet rag. Though she didn't look down to check—the sight of blood had always made her feel faint—Fluttershy knew that little red specks splotched the leaf and twig covered ground every few meters. At first, she debated whether or not she should try to hide her trail. There were more than enough leaves strewn across to cover her trail with a few well-timed sweeps of her tail. If that didn't work, she could always break apart a few of the stronger smelling flowers in her pouch to mask her scent.

She pushed the thought from her mind almost as soon as it arose. This wouldn't be the first trail of "breadcrumbs" she had left behind, and nothing had caught her yet. Still, she lifted herself higher into the canopy. At least the altitude would make her harder to track.

She knew the path like the back of her hoof. She knew when to stop fluttering her wings and glide. She knew when to perk her ears up and listen. _Nothing but the wind_, she noted. She knew when to make a quick turn upwards, and she knew where the hole in the canopy was. Even still, as she glided through the tiny gap, the sharp branches scratching at her wings and sides, she knew exactly what she would see.

That didn't mean she had to look at it.

Eyes locked on the forest below her, she took a hard right and began to fly faster than she used to think she could dream of. It still wasn't "Wonderbolts" fast, or even as fast as the pegasi at the back alley races her father used to drag her to when she was younger, but to her it felt like she was about to break the sound barrier.

A giant red flower passed beneath, its shade like that of drying blood under the pale light, and she banked to her left. As she did, she moved her gaze away from the monotonous treetops and stole a glance at the horizon.

The world above the canopy was as empty and caliginous as the world below it. Far off in the distance, just barely visible when Fluttershy squinted, were a cluster of towering, charcoal black objects. She had flown there before, had soared amongst the black skeletons of time. That had been and would remain to be the only time if she had any say in the matter.

Some days, she would have a lingering voice in the back of her head tell her to fly back over there. '_You can find a home there,_' it would say, its tone coarse as sandpaper. It was the voice of a demon, the voice in her inner head. Of course, over time she had learned that demons, as vile as they were, spoke the truth. Especially nowadays, when there were no goddesses to turn her against. There was no reason for them to lie.

Maybe it was right, maybe there was salvation amongst the towering corpses. Speculation didn't much matter to her though. The only way to know for sure was to fly back out there, and she wasn't doing that. Never again, not even in a hundred years. There was too much risk, too much pain, and not enough rewards.

Fluttershy shook her head and glanced down just in time to see herself drawing near the "Thorn." She wasn't quite sure why she had given the protruding tree top a title, or why she had chosen that particular word. It must have been because it made it feel normal.

_Almost there_, she mumbled inwardly. She moved all her attention to her wings and began to flap as if her life depended on it. In only a few blinks of her dry eyes she was at the hole. She let out a small squeak and awkwardly flew through it, splinters and whimpers following her all the way to the soft ground that made up the pond's shore. As twigs and leaves rained around her, Fluttershy lifted her head, perked her ears, and took in her surroundings.

The surface of the pond trembled in the constant breeze, but besides that it was as if a cover of reticence had been draped over the clearing. No birds chirped, no fish splashed as they broke the surface to catch flies, no coyotes howled from somewhere deep within the myriad of weathered trees, and no baby animals rolled restlessly in their sleep, filling the air with the sounds of rustling and snapping straw.

Fluttershy let out a sigh that even she couldn't hear over the torrential breeze and, lackadaisical step by lackadaisical step, made her way around the shore. Her cut foreleg screamed with each flex. She could feel the blood soaking the fur as it trickled down. As she veered closer to the water, she felt the urge to sigh, but she held it back—the wind could only carry so many.

She dipped her foreleg into the tepid waters, cringing as a burning sensation slithered all the way from her hoof to her shoulder. It wasn't a deep cut or a wide one, and she had experienced much worse, but the searing pain of each wound never failed to call forth a few tears. She bit her lip and stuck her nose into her pouch. It smelled of decay. It took all her effort to not throw up right then and there. She sniffed around, retching constantly, until she found the smell she was searching for. Delicately clamping her teeth around one of the flower's petals, she pulled it out of her sack and dropped it on a nearby stone.

Fluttershy then took another damp rock in her mouth and, trying in vain to ignore the moss tickling her tongue, used it to break the flower apart. Once the petals were the size of ants, she scooped them up on her tongue and placed them over the cut. Confident that they wouldn't fall off, she leaned down and introduced her muzzle to the murky water. She sputtered and coughed a bit as the liquid rushed up her nostrils. Eventually, she was able to calm herself down enough to take a mouthful. She quickly pulled out of the pond and leaned over the cut on her leg, letting the water pour out of her mouth like a gentle fountain. If Rarity were around to see her, she would gag—hay, Fluttershy bet that even Applejack would find the act revolting—but they weren't around to judge. Even if they were, Fluttershy figured they would understand. She only did what she had to.

Without moving her leg, Fluttershy reached back into her pouch and pulled out a thin, shredded bandage strip. If it were bright enough outside, she knew she would see brown splotches where the strip had been used countless times before. A part of her mind worried about what the repeated use of the bandage might cause—the words "infection" and "disease" rang the loudest—but it was shoved aside. She had to make do with what little she had, and an open wound, in her opinion, was more of a risk than a dirty bandage. Without another moment of hesitation or thought, she wrapped the bandage around the wound and stood up on shaky legs.

After a few practice steps to make sure the bandage was not going to come loose easily, she turned and approached an unassuming bundle of brush far from the shore of the pond. To any other pony, it was just a bunch of shrubs and whatnot, but to Fluttershy it might as well have been a door with a welcome mat placed before it. She carefully pushed the twigs and leaves and briars away and stared into the mouth of a cave. It was as though she was staring into the deepest trench of the ocean. She paused in the entryway, fiddling with her hooves, and listened to the perpetual wind. Then, with one last sigh, she ducked down and walked inside.

Weaving around stalagmites and ducking underneath stalactites, Fluttershy limped through the dark cave. The echoing hooves and dripping ceiling called the cadence of her march, growing more and more disconcerting as she retreated deeper and deeper. There was just something about the way her hoofsteps echoed around—how she could hear the steps of the near and distant past in the same ear at the same time. It made everything feel vast and empty.

She leaned against the damp wall, shuddering and swallowing heavily. Her breaths came out in ragged staccato bursts. As much as she disliked using the word, she _hated_ the feelings this cave incited. Never before had she thought it was possible for a place to make her feel both claustrophobic and agoraphobic simultaneously. She also loathed the way it made her throat close and her eyes water and her heart sink into the pit of her stomach, but she had to admit that that wasn't the fault of the cave so much as it was the fault of reality.

Fluttershy groaned and pushed herself off the wall. With a loud cough, her legs began to move once more.

If there was one thing to be thankful for about the whole situation, it was that the cave wasn't too far below the ground. Long, yes, but not deep underground. Every few steps there was another hole in the top with pale light trickling through it. If a storm blew through, it would be trouble. Luckily for Fluttershy, it didn't rain much anymore, and when it did it came in the form of light sprinkles.

The cave tightened like her swollen throat, and she found herself having to squeeze between the jagged rocks. It was a chore to get through, and she never made it without a brand new batch of bruises, but it was still Fluttershy's favorite part of the cave. It was the one place in the cave where she could close her eyes and think about another place and time.

Her reverie was the same each time. She imagined that she was walking through Ponyville's market, trying her best to force her way through the Saturday afternoon crowd in the gentlest way possible. She imagined that the rocks were the elbows of other ponies, hard and sharp, but in spite of the malaise she pushed forward with the hint of a smile tugging at her lips. And for a few precious seconds, everything was right.

Then she came to the keyhole and the dream was blown away like a feather in a hurricane. Opening her eyes, she felt the familiar hollowness return to her chest and her small smile did a complete one-eighty. She gazed at the hole through drooped eyelids. It returned a cold and callous stare. With a squeaky exhale, she climbed through.

The darkness greeted her return with its usual frigidness. She could barely hear her shaking legs kicking up pebbles over her chattering jaw. It was the same embrace and the same chill every time; it felt like she was being hugged by a ghost.

A tapping filled the air as she hit the wall of the cave with her good foreleg. "Come on..." she mumbled as her hoof continued to hit nothing but stone. She was used to hitting the switch with her left leg, but now that that leg was nothing but an aching, swollen, bandaged mess, she had to improvise. Didn't make it any less frustrating, though.

She bit her tongue, closed her eyes, thought of sunny meadows filled with giddy animals, and slowly pressed her hoof against the wall. She moved it down and heard a small clank. A small smile formed at her lips as she felt around for the button. With a press of her hoof there was a spark, then a faint whirring, and the cavern was doused in an amber light.

It was difficult to make a cave seem homely—especially to a pony—but Fluttershy had tried her best. The small room was lit by a single transplanted street lamp: one of her finest creations, in her opinion.

Though electronics, and technology in general, were far from her forte, she had been able—through trial and error, burns and scars, and enough frustrations to fill an art school—to put together a something resembling a lighting setup. She had found an old generator that still worked when she was scouring an old, roofless and wall-less cabin, and been able to move it all the way back to the cave. Luckily for her, one of the many books she still had laying about had a lot of information on generators and electricity. She had been able to rig it up to the lamp and had even found four canisters of fuel on a return trip to the cabin. According to the book, the fuel lasted a year, give or take a few months depending on how often it was turned on. Fluttershy only ran it for an hour at most a day. She had been using the same canister for... well, quite a while now.

While the electronics were impressive, the decor was sickeningly drab and minimal. A single bed rested in the corner, musty pillows and sheets stained by the irregularly dripping waters. Besides the bed, she had one other piece of furniture: mildewed table with a large chunk missing from one side.

Fluttershy walked over to the table and tossed her pouch onto its aged top, then unwrapped her sheath from around her thigh and flung it onto the table as well. It creaked and moaned, but it did not buckle. She sat back on her haunches, opened the pouch, and spread its contents over the tabletop like a deck of cards. Leaning down and resting her chin on the table, she let out a tiny whimper. It was late and she was cold and her leg hurt. For a moment, she flirted with the idea of simply going to bed right then and there, but she shook it away.

Only four edible flowers lay upon the table, inciting a frown from Fluttershy. Enough food for a day; considerably less than her usual haul. Still, she couldn't call the small catch a surprise. For starters, she had been using that patch—all five square feet of it—for almost a month now. It was going to run low eventually. Also, there was the fact that she had run into Him. No, her usual hunting grounds were no longer safe. She would have to find new ones.

She groaned, slamming her face against the top and scratching at the wood with her hooves. She could barely keep her eyes open.

_Bed now... plan tomorrow_. Even her inner voice sounded tired.

Her knees and back cracked as she stood. She limped over to the bed and fell down onto the mattress, not even bothering to move her head up to the pillow. With a sigh, she turned her head, resting her cheek on her foreleg and staring at the faded picture taped to the cave wall. A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips and didn't leave—not even after she had fallen asleep.

* * *

Fluttershy awoke with a frown and a snort.

She had dreamed. It was the same dream she had every night: wave after opaque wave, washing upon a shore of volcanic ash. She used to be able to feel the sand beneath her hooves—uncomfortable and foreign—but now it was just her, a vast sea as dark as coal, and a beach with not a seashell or rock from horizon to horizon. Some nights she walked it. Not last night, though. Last night she sat and watched and let the stygian water rinse off her sandy hooves.

Muttering gibberish, she moved her uninjured foreleg directly against her nose, sniffed, and choked. For a second, Fluttershy thought she was going to throw up all over her bed, but she was somehow able to keep the tsunami in her gut at bay. She swallowed the sour lump in her throat and sat up, her stomach still whirling and nose feeling as if a gallon of salt water had been poured up it.

Shivers racked her legs as her hooves touched the stone floor. Small, uneasy steps guided her over to the table, and she sat down with a grunt. She propped her bandaged leg up and grimaced. It was soaked through, a drop of blood trickling down the cloth and onto the wood.. Lowering it, she began to sift through a litter of papers in the top-right corner with her. Eventually, her hoof fell upon a sooty, thick sheet of parchment covered in black lines and even blacker X's.

Fluttershy rested her foreleg on the table and place her hoof under her chin. With a tilt of her head, her neck popped like a firecracker. She let out a high-pitched sigh and began to scan over the map.

The first thing she did was stick her hoof in a pile of ash and cross-out the small patch of land she had been in the night before. Wiping her hoof off on her tail, she began to search for a new spot. More and more of the "patches" she had found were becoming nothing but ash marks. Now, only two remained. Her stomach and head felt as though they'd just been dunked in a pool of icy water. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she studied the two remaining candidates.

Location number one was a triangular field of daisies near a bluff on the western coast. She had come across while searching the coastline for caves to hole up in. There'd been a decent camping spot in one of the small caves on the cliff face, but after one night of cold waves constantly washing on her every few minutes, she had abandoned it for drier pastures. The field had only been touched by her hooves once, and she had only taken a single daisy. She had flown over it again in the last month, and it hadn't changed much. If her memories were correct, there were thirteen daisies in the patch: roughly two weeks' worth of food.

The second candidate was more promising, but also riskier.

During a scouting trip she had seen a greenhouse amidst the ruined buildings. Even from hundreds of meters in the air, she could see hundreds of edible flowers: an all-you-can-eat buffet. If she could get in there, she would have enough food to last her months!

However, she wasn't sure if it was worth it.

Getting the flowers meant going to the greenhouse, which meant going back into the heart of the city: the one place she had sworn that she would never go again. The land of reminders, from the smell to the slag. Just the very thought of going there sent a chill down her spine and made her wings lock against her side. She grunted and tried to unfurl them, but they were equal parts stubborn and afraid, and refused to move even a single feather.

And then there was Him...

The city was His territory, His lair. If she ventured in that direction, she would run into Him. It wasn't even a question of "when" anymore. She knew Him. She knew that He desired nothing but the taste of flesh and blood. And she knew that she was the last pony in the bag. If she ventured into the city, He would find her and attack. The idea of flying away from Him gleamed promisingly for a fraction of a second before imploding. Her wings were locking up just thinking about it. No way would they carry her to safety.

It took her mere seconds to decide the winner.

With a snort, she rose to her hooves. First things first, she was going to have to clean herself up. Any more days without bathing and she guessed that the smell of the cave would become unbearable. She'd lived in caves filled with animal feces and wet fur, and a cottage filled with the same, and neither of them came close to matching the rankness of Fluttershy's own body at that very moment.

She limped over to the entrance to her home and hovered, hooves barely leaving the floor. The only bar of soap she had lay upon a natural shelf that had formed in the cave wall. It was less likely to get wet there than anywhere else, and considering how rare soap was to come by these days, she felt that the extra workout was worth the trouble. She slid the bar off off the shelf with her foreleg, catching it on top of her head. Once her hooves were back on solid ground, she tucked the bar underneath her wing.

Sure that the soap was secure, Fluttershy crept back over to the table, scooped a couple of daisies into her pouch, draped it over her torso, took the strap of her holster in her mouth, and walked over to the cave door, barely squeezing through the tight opening.

* * *

The world was gray. A constant veil of smoky clouds covered the sky, and the air stunk of burnt wood. Fluttershy wondered if there was a forest fire—questioned if she should fly up above the canopy and check, just to be sure—but then she remembered that it was spring. It smelled like burnt wood the spring before and the spring before that and the spring before that and so on and so forth. This year was simply no different.

She walked around the shore, occasionally hopping over a stick or rock and landing on her hind legs as though it were some kind of game. And maybe it was. Maybe it could qualify as a "game." She was having fun and creating rules about what to jump over and how to land and how many points a perfect landing earned—as well as how many points were deducted if one of her forelegs touched the ground after a jump. A smile spread on her face. She thought about Ponyville. She thought about her friends. No sooner had the thoughts crossed her mind than her smile collapsed like a burning trestle.

The hops and skips ceased, replaced by shuffling and a downcast gaze. Her mane slapped her across the face as if it were a cat o' nine tails. She tried her best to blow it away, but weeks without washing had turned it into a greasy mess. Relinquishing her mane to the infernal and incessant gusts, Fluttershy trudged up onto a small pier of rocks and sat down, letting her hind hooves rest in the tepid water.

Unfurling her wing, she brought the bar of soap to her hoof. It was a difficult balancing act, but she managed to keep it firmly set. She lowered her foreleg, inch by inch, until the soap was submerged, then she quickly pulled it out, rubbed it between her hooves until it lathered up, and then began to trace her body in suds. As she did, she caught sight of her reflection in the dark surface of the pool. It was amazing, the ways time and desperation had molded and morphed her body.

The bar of soap bounced over her jutting ribs. While she had always been a skinny pony, her current emaciated state was still troubling. When she ate, it was flowers, and flowers alone; that was all there was. There were no cupcakes or sundaes or cupcake sundaes to add a few extra pounds to her frame. Her belly was like a yellow twig, wriggling like a dying worm as yet another frigid draft caressed her body. She couldn't help but give a small laugh. All her life, mares had always been competing to be skinny, but now there was nothing a pony wanted more than fat.

She observed that, for the most part, she looked no different from the time before. Her mane was still long enough to hide behind and her tail had more than enough length to trip over if she wasn't careful. The color of her coat faded,where what had once been a sunny yellow was now the color of brass. She blinked her sunken eyes and sighed. It didn't match the hues of the rest of her body—Rarity would have a fit if she saw her now—but Fluttershy would just have to deal with it. It was the only thing she could do.

Taking the bar of soap in her wing, she started to scrub her back. She stole another glance in the surface of the pond and gave a silent giggle. It wasn't just her coat that had changed. She always had to be at the ready—wings unfurled and knees bent—expecting anything and everything to pop out of the brush and give chase.

But, did escape matter? Did any of this even matter? Why was she even wasting her time, risking her safety over a bath? The only thing cleansing would kill was odor, and the only thing it would improve was her image. That was all any of it seemed to be for now that she thought about it: beauty. Was there any point to being beautiful anymore? With smelling decently? With surviving? The questions echoed around her head, forever ricocheting and wounding her crippled mind even more. There were few things in life that Fluttershy hated—few things that she would change if given the chance. Her glass half-empty outlook was one of these things. However, there was one thing that made her gloom a little brighter. Though she couldn't erase her thinking, she had found the perfect distraction.

Without a word or thought more, Fluttershy jumped into the water. Under the ice-cold water she stayed for what felt like hours, her mane dancing around her like ballerinas amidst the murky depths. Soon, her lungs felt like blocks of concrete and her face grew numb. There was a flicker in her mind, a voice that told her to breathe in and make the solace permanent. For a second, she considered it. A second and it was gone. She broke the surface, gasping for air, and climbed back onto the rocks.

She lay with her back against the damp rocks, staring at the gray sky above her. There was brief moment in which the apprehensive air was vanquished and replaced by something she could only call happiness. Alas, it was but dandelions in the wind, here one moment and gone the next. The weight of the world fell a hundred stories and upon her chest once more.

When she finally got up, it was out of habit, and she was back in the cave, then out and gone, before the gusts could even die down.

* * *

Three minutes into her flight, Fluttershy was beginning to wish that she had mapped out a better way to the bluff. Even though she was at the point where she could call herself an experienced flyer, flying against an air current was still as difficult as fitting an elephant inside a shoebox.

The sky became a brighter shade of gray the father west she traveled. There were even splotches of sky where she swore she could see clear, blue sky through the shroud. Sure, she could have been seeing things—she probably was; nothing could pierce that miasma—but she liked having that little bit of hope. It was something to hold on to, even if the other end was connected to yet more dead rock.

Below her, the canopy stretched out: a waning, sickly green mass. Near the horizon, she could see where the green ended and a pale brown began. She sniffed the air and was greeted by the scent of salt. The air felt a little bit wetter, livelier. She exhaled and wiped the sweat from her brow. _Just a few more minutes_, she thought, repeating her mantra like a broken record. _Just a few more minutes... just a few more... minutes. A couple more flaps, and you'll be swimming in daisies_.

What felt like an hour and hundreds of flaps later, she crossed the forest's edge and landed on the lifeless blades of grass with a loud crackle. She lowered herself to the ground and, once she was sure that all four hooves were on solid ground, promptly collapsed. Tongue lolling out the corner of her mouth, she panted. Fluttershy doubted even a goddess would be able to handle that current with ease, and the thought lifted her spirits ever so slightly. She stood with renewed vigor and flapped her wings.

She cried out and fell back to the ground. Her wings felt like they were on fire—maybe they were. She looked back to check. Nope, no flames or scorches. Just some dirty feathers and spasms. Looking back at it now, the thought felt silly, but she couldn't be too sure of anything now. Life was nothing but fickle. The only things set in stone were the dead gods.

She stood up with a groan. The flowers couldn't be more than a mile away. Her legs were good—she had walked twenty miles back to her cave after a run-in with a blind curve and jutting rock had nearly torn her wing from its socket. A mile's trot, even with only three legs to stand on, was a piece of cake. Fluttershy stretched out—spraining another ankle would be a death sentence out here—then began to march forward. The scent of flowers came to her on the back of the wind, and she smiled; there was no sweeter beckon than the aroma of life.

It was a long walk, filled with nothing but gasps for air. The minutes ticked by and Fluttershy's legs felt heavier and heavier. Her mind screamed for her to stop, but she shook the thought away. If she stopped now, she knew that she wouldn't start again. Her wings would regain composure and the panic would set in, and she would ride the current all the way back to her cave, shaking and famished. No, she had to push on. She _had_ to.

She closed her eyes and bit her lip, counting, _One... two... t-three... fffourrr..._ Every fiber of her being was being cremated at once. She could feel tears cascading down her face. _Just a quick break_, her mind pleaded, but again she ignored it. She had given up too many times before. Not this time. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

It took all her effort to keep the sob at bay.

Before her lay a patch of grass as green as the finest emeralds. A grin tugged at her lips, threatening to tear their edges. Even from a distance, the tiny pasture was the epitome of beauty. Just a few more steps and she'd be saved. She tilted her head back and sniffed the air, and then retched.

She had expected the smell of daisies and wet grass. What she got was the stench of death and ruin.

With each trembling step, her eyes grew a bit wider. With each step, the smell grew stronger. With each step, the crevasse in her stomach grew wider and deeper. With each step, she died a little more.

She was only a few yards away from it now, and her fears had been all but answered. The smell was unbearable; she could taste the bile building in the back of her mouth. Where the white of daisies and yellow of daffodils were supposed to be, Fluttershy only saw various shades of brown. Fractured blades of grass littered the ground like snowflakes in a blizzard. The corpses of daisies and daffodils were strewn about ground zero, and Fluttershy mourned their loss. On the flowers that had not been murdered in cold blood, she found...

No. She hoped it was dirt, but the smell was undeniable. Praying that luck was on her side for once, she gave one good sniff. The smell of feces filled her senses, and she collapsed onto her haunches, leaned forward, and vomited all over a dozen severed daisy heads.

She wanted to ask, "_Why?_" She wanted to ask, "_How?_" But she knew the answer already. This was His work.

As if to confirm her suspicions, a growl emitted from behind her. If she hadn't already emptied her stomach, she would have thrown up again. In her mind, she played out what would happen next: snarling, screaming, gurgling, a metallic taste, fading lights, and, just as her mind left the world, His yellow, cold eyes staring into hers. She knew that that was what would happen. She could feel it, taste it.

It wasn't how she had expected to die. With all she had been through, it was odd that _this_ would do her in. Still, the more she thought about it, the more fitting it seemed. Nopony expected the end to ever come, and yet it had. Her friends had expected to go out old, or at least whilst doing something for the greater good. Instead, they became nothing but grains of ash in the wind. Sometimes she wondered if they were on her. Had they been in her mane? Had she washed them off?

Her mind drifted back towards Him. His breaths were loud, and she could hear the saliva dripping from His maw. Her eyes burned, partially from the smell and partially from the familiar sounds of dry grass breaking under His steps. She thought she heard a laugh. She thought she heard a voice. She knew that this was it.

_Should I even bother looking?_ she asked herself. _Should I even give Him the benefit?_ No. He wanted her fear just as much as He wanted her flesh and blood. She didn't know how she knew it, but she did: He wanted her to turn around, wanted her to scream, wanted the last words she gurgled out of her torn throat to be pleas for mercy, wanted the last thing she saw to be His tongue lapping up her blood like a dog drinking from a water bowl.

_No._

Without so much as a glance over her shoulder, she jumped up and tried to spread her wings, only to find them locked firmly to her sides. A snarl erupted from behind her, and the steps turned to thunderclaps. She hesitated. She could feel His breath, the rancid stench strangling her. The sound of incisors snapping shut like a bear trap pierced her eardrums. She screamed at her legs to move, and she bolted towards the treeline. She heard the rip, though she felt nothing. A wave of dread washed over her, not letting up until she stole a brief glance behind her. She sighed in relief when she saw that it was only the hair of her tail that had been taken by the beast.

The forest was a few hundred meters away, but it looked like miles. Where her legs had felt like blocks of concrete before, they were now feathers. Balance escaped her, and it amazed her that she hadn't yet tripped over a rock or stick and fallen flat on her face. She could hear Him behind her, heavy steps and heavier breaths ringing like funeral tolls. She swore she could feel His claws bearing down on her hooves, threatening to tear skin and tendons and end it all. She didn't look back; her eyes stayed locked to the treeline. So long as she made it into the woods, she'd be alright. There were bound to be abandoned burrows and caves all over the woods, not to mention she had wings. So long as she could keep them behaved, she'd be back to the cave before He even knew what was going on. He may have been strong and vicious, but He had the intelligence of a bowl of styrofoam peanuts. He would look behind trees and up and down the paths, but that was it. She had dealt with Him before, though the calls had never been this close.

It was right as she crossed the threshold into the woods that Rainbow Dash crossed her mind. The timing couldn't have been worse, and it made no sense for her mind to even venture there, yet it did. She thought about what her friend would have done. Rainbow wouldn't have even ran. Rainbow would have turned and fought. And if she had been too hurt to fight, Rainbow would have either flown away or died a dignified death. Rainbow would have gone out like a wolf protecting her cubs. Fluttershy was going out like a gazelle running from a lion. If she could choose, she would be a wolf, but it wasn't meant to be. She came into this world a coward, and she was going out as one.

She shook her head and brought herself back into the realm of reality, just in time to see a tree trunk speeding towards her. A single, terrified "eeep" escaped her lips before everything went dark.

And for a second, she could have sworn she heard somepony laughing.

* * *

Fluttershy had always been curious what death would be like. Would it be sudden, like all the candles in a room being blown out at once? Or would it be slow, the lights and feelings fading as reality crushed her into nothing? Pain or no pain? Paradise or darkness?

She couldn't help but think that this was it: a shroud of blackness and the sound of dark winds.

Then the smell hit her, and her nose lit up like an inferno. No... No, she was alive; death couldn't possible smell _this_ bad.

Her eyes cracked open, but quickly slammed shut again as a cavalcade of spiked hooves stampeded through her skull. She whimpered and brought her forelegs to her head, cradling it like she would an injured squirrel so many lives ago. She felt liquid running down her muzzle, and wiped it off. Daring to take another peek, she saw a brief flash of red before the pain became too intense. Her mind drifted back to death again. Maybe _this_ was what it was like: a brief regain of consciousness to spring hope, only for the fangs of mortality to sink into her neck just as the sparkle came back to her eyes.

No. That wouldn't happen; it couldn't happen. After everything, this wasn't how it ended. The only reason she was still alive after all this... it had to be for some sort of purpose. Right?

Little by little, she opened her eyes, trying her best to ignore her scorching skull. Wherever she was, it was very dark. Various shades of black reached to her from all sides. Her eyes seemed to take forever to adjust to her surroundings, but when they did, the first things she saw were the piles of bones surrounding her. Her eyes widened as her gaze landed on the little bits of flesh still hanging off them. The ground beneath her was a vile brown and the room, if it even was a room, smelled of blood, excrement, and body odor. She brought her forelegs to her skull, feeling bald spots where He had dragged her. This was His den, there was no denying it. This was it. He had dragged her back to His lair, just so He could relish His meal all the more. She fell into a series of dry heaves, waiting for the snarling, waiting for His saliva to drip down upon her head like a downpour.

But it never came.

Reluctantly, she looked up and around. She was in a den of some sort, most likely His, but He was nowhere to be found. Closing her eyes and whispering a silent prayer to long gone gods, she listened for a step, a breath, a growl, or a snapping of teeth. Yet all she got was a gentle pitter-patter coming from the direction that the mouth of the lair was. Then she noticed the rumbling: distant but distinctive. Her eyes shot open, alight with newfound hope.

A storm. It hadn't stormed in months. It was like a godsend, an answered prayer. She knew that she could navigate the forest in bad weather, but she doubted He could. It would cover her tracks and scent well enough to buy her time. All she had to do was get out without being seen, and she'd be home free. Looking at her sides, she noted that her pouch and knife were still laying against her side, straps draped over her shoulder and hips. She opened the pouch and nearly cried out in joy as her eyes fell upon all her contents, piled up exactly as they had been before. Tears threatening to pour down her cheeks, she thanked her lucky stars and stood.

She took one step and collapsed. Her legs buckled and any attempts to stand straight were in vain. Soon her whole body joined in the festivities, and the ground shook under her spasmodic form. She wanted to move, had to move, and screamed at her legs and wings to do so, but her demands went unfollowed. Her cheeks and stomach felt like they were filled with sand, and a deathly chill washed over her body. At first she thought she had been poisoned, but she knew that couldn't be the case. No, this was simply her being what she had always been: a craven.

It amazed her, how she had survived for so long. Was it simply a game of blackjack, and she had simply been dealt the best cards while everypony else had overdrawn? Or was it the work of something higher? If some higher being had decided that she of all ponies were to survive the end, why? Did she have a purpose, or was it simply entertaining to watch her cower as she avoided the inevitable? Maybe the world was just entertained by the prospect of watching some lily-livered pegasus go through hell. Meek ponies like her might inherit the earth, but that didn't mean that it was on her side. She knew that there were devils out there, that they were waiting for her, that they stalked her and hungered for her, and that they would eventually win.

Grunting, she rose back to her hooves and, step by trembling step, made her way towards the exit. She was anything but stealthy; the pebbles bounced across the cave floor as if an earthquake was savaging the world. Water poured down from the top of the mouth, forming what appeared to be a staircase made of rushing water. She liked the idea of stairs made out of water. It reminded her of some of the things she'd seen, back when magic had ruled. Briefly, she wondered if magic still existed, but the thought was pushed away as a falling rock startled her. She looked behind her, expecting looming shadows. She got nothing. With a quavering sigh, she moved on.

The cascade of rainwater greeted her with a cold "hello." She pushed her matted mane free from her eyes and immediately crouched into a prone position. Maybe this was a trap. He was probably perched above the cave mouth with a blood-soaked grin spread across His maw. Practically crying in fear, she turned her head and stole one quick, shaky glance behind her. A dark shadow loomed, and she fell backwards with a squeak. Lightning illuminated her surroundings, and she saw that it was just a boulder. Frowning, she rose to her hooves once more, and took two steps forward. When she halted, she swore she heard her stomach collapse. All around her was rain and canopy and tree trunks she had never seen in her life.

This was all a game. She knew that somewhere in the great wide open, something was watching her and laughing. She knew that she couldn't let it be satisfied.

She closed her eyes and asked what Rainbow Dash would have done. It was a simple question with a simple answer: Rainbow would have soared off at the speed of sound. She told her wings to unfurl, but they curled up tighter. She demanded them to open once more, and they seemed to sink into her skin. Shaking her head, she closed her eyes and asked what Applejack would do in this situation.

'_Get the heck outta dodge._' The voice was distant, as the voices of all ghosts were, but even in her head, Fluttershy could hear Applejack's accent, could see her bright green eyes sparking all the motivation she needed.

Without so much as a doubtful whimper, she began to walk, her legs heavy as lead.

* * *

Time was something Fluttershy had stopped caring about long ago, so when she came to the clearing, she didn't know how long she had been walking. Her legs felt like they'd been set ablaze, and her wings still refused to move—though she figured it was now fatigue rather than fear that kept them locked.

At first, her journey had been met with raindrops. When the rain lifted a half-hour into her walk it was replaced by tinnitus and blurred vision. All the trees looked the same and the wind always sang out in the same voice. At one point, a noise had roused her from her robotic state: a chirp of some sort. Though such hope was foolish, she had perked her ears and searched the trees like a mother looking for her foal anyway. She searched the branches for what felt like—and probably were—hours, hunting for the tiny form of a bird, squawking away in its nest or flying through the sky with ease. The only thing she saw was the bent branch blowing in the breeze, a chirping sound ringing forth with each gust.

She fell back onto her haunches and stared at the field of shriveled grass before her. Familiar dark shadows were creeping down upon the ground, silhouetting the claws of the tree branches. Still, the impending dark wasn't the only thing that had made her stop. What had really made her pause was the large mound of earth jutting straight up, its soddy bottom exposed to the gray sun. She reached out and pushed on it, and an entire circle of earth trembled. Grunting, she shoved both hooves under it and pushed up, and it folded back like the lid of a treasure chest. Even in the coming dark she could see the bottom of the pit: no spikes, just leaves and dirt. She gulped, bursting the dam that had closed her throat, and climbed in, hind legs flailing like a madmare's even after they had touched solid ground.

The first thing she did once her wits were about her—and they never were really about her—was slide the trap door back over the the opening. As soon as it fell down securely with a dull plop she finally took an easy breath, her legs relaxing and wings coming back to life. There was still a crack on the left side of the "door," but that was something she both expected and hoped for. He wouldn't notice it; He was a predator. Fluttershy knew her animals. Predators relied on brute strength and size whereas prey used intelligence to their advantage. Sure, the tables could be turned from time to time and you'd find a crafty and sly predator like a fox taking down gargantuan prey with herculean strength like an elephant, but those were merely exceptions. She knew that there was nothing special about her and nothing special about Him. Their game of cat and mouse was like one of those from the folktales she would read about in picturebooks, underneath the light of fireflies, back when she was a filly in flight camp. As long as she wasn't standing out in the open, she was safe.

She sat back and curled up in a ball. What was she going to do now? The one field she had hoped to be her salvation had been anything but, the fruits and vegetables had long since died, and now her only hope to survive was a greenhouse that might have been a mere illusion the first time she had seen it, in a city that she would sooner die than set hoof into again. There was another option, but just the thought of thinking about considering it made Fluttershy want to tear herself limb from limb.

The wind blew through the opening, making a ghostly wail. She curled up tighter as the shivers took hold. Through squinting eyes, just barely visible in the little shaft of pale light that shone into the hole, she could see her breath trailing out of her mouth, dancing through the air like ponies at play.

A frail giggle shook her chest as the hazy visions of a camping trip she and her friends had had back in the day made its way into her vision.

* * *

_The six of them were curled up in their sleeping bags, all under the same roof, the same sky, very much alive and well. Outside, an owl hooted while the dying sparks of the campfire performed their curtain call, crackling just loud enough to keep Fluttershy awake. She began shivering as soon as the tent had been zipped up, and hadn't stopped since. She tried to keep her teeth and limbs still, but to no avail. She watched the vapor of her breath drift across the room like a spirit and tickle Twilight Sparkle's nose. The unicorn stirred and Fluttershy's ears drooped. She hoped that she hadn't woken her._

_She had. Fluttershy whimpered as she heard the sleeping bag unzip, and her shaking increased. Time moved in slow motion as Fluttershy watched Twilight slowly walk towards her, beautiful violet eyes sparkling in the dark, constantly drifting from her, to the floor, then back to her. Always back to her._

_Fluttershy felt her feiend's hoof quaver on her shoulder. At first, she wondered why Twilight was so nervous, then she realized that it was merely her hoof taking a ride on her trembling form._

"_Fluttershy?" Twilight asked. The voice was fainter now, but it still had that tone. That caring tone. "Are you okay?"_

"_N-n-no," she answered._

"_Mind telling me what's wrong?" Fluttershy could feel the breath of her whisper. It was warm. It was... nice._

"_I'm... I'm just cold." Her ears drooped as soon as the shaky words had been uttered. "Not like that's a... a bad thing or anything. This camping trip is really... really nice and I—"_

_A hoof over her mouth silenced her. Twilight said nothing; she simply smiled. Fluttershy smiled back. There was a long, lovely silence before Twilight spoke again._

"_Scootch over."_

"_Huh?"_

"_Move over," Twilight said with a giggle. "The sleeping bag's obviously not keeping you warm."_

"_B-but why does that mean I have to..." The words drifted off as Fluttershy felt the most heavenly warmth she'd ever felt in her life rush over her. Even in the dark, she could see Twilight's eyes inches from her own._

"_Goodnight, Fluttershy."_

"_Goodnight, Twilight," Fluttershy stammered, the shakes coming back full force. She worried that this would disappoint Twilight. After all, she was putting so much effort into making her feel better, and what was she rewarding her with? More shaking. _

_But Twilight's eyes didn't furrow. The smile on her face never lost a single drop of warmness. All around her, Fluttershy could hear rustling and zippers._

_All at once, she was buried in a sea of warmness, forelegs wrapping around her neck and soft, lively bodies brushing her and resting against her like a blanket. In the dark and the cold, she was able to make them out, the feel of their coats and muscles as they breathed softly. It was a feeling as familiar to her as the feel of her wings as she soared through empty skies. Their shadows were like the ashen silhouettes of lovers on the wall of a bombed out city: unwashed by time, beautiful, painful._

_She let her eyes crack open as sleep rolled over her like gentle waves. She looked with both her eyes and body, relishing the moment, wishing it would never end. Like an elderly mare looking over her college photographs, she focused on them: how they looked and how they felt and just how important they would forever be._

_The delicately filed and decorated hoof of Rarity, a diamond-encrusted bracelet on her foreleg reflecting the moonlight._

_Pinkie Pie's grip, tight and full of life. Fluttershy could smell the cotton candy._

_She could see the muscles in one of the forelegs, and she knew then that had to be Applejack's. Her touch was equal parts strong and gentle, and all parts friendly._

_A brief flapping sound and a fifth grip joined the fray. This one felt like a death grip around her neck, yet there was an all too familiar lightness to it. She heard a thump and giggled slightly at Applejack's hushed scolding. Then she felt something bury itself in the back of her mane, lively breaths tickling her scalp. "'Night, Flutters," Rainbow Dash whispered._

"_Goodnight, girls." Fluttershy's grin grew wider and wider, and she could have sworn that her lips were about to tear at their seams. But she didn't care. "I love you all."_

_And with that, they slept: six sets of gentle breaths permeating through time._

* * *

Fluttershy sighed and watched her breath fade. It reminded her of a time she longed to remember, yet could feel fading fast. She reminisced about a time when she knew the order of the colors in Rainbow Dash's mane. Now, she could barely remember what the colors were to begin with. Was it red, orange, yellow? Orange, yellow, red? Or did blue come first?

She tried to remember what the first book Twilight forced her to read was, the compliments Rarity had given her during one of her many modeling sessions at the Boutique, the flavor of the dozen smiling cat face cupcakes Pinkie had given her on her nineteenth birthday, the color of the bands in Applejack's mane and tail, but she couldn't. They were all memories lost to time, and soon the others would join them. Friendship may be a star, but even the strongest, brightest stars fade in time.

But...

But that didn't mean that it had to be now. No, so long as she survived, somepony would remember five of the greatest creatures the world had ever known—the five worth remembering the most. What would her friends have done? They would have gone into the city. They would have taken risks. Fluttershy felt the flame in her chest warm a few degrees. Tomorrow, she would walk to the city and into that greenhouse, and her friends would be there with her every shaking step of the way. She knew they would; they always had been and they always would be.

The shivers ceased and she closed her eyes. And though she knew it was just her imagination, she could have sworn she felt five legs wrap around her, calm her mind, wipe away her tears, and lull her to sleep.

* * *

She woke with her eyes set in a burning glare, fueled by a fire in her chest. Her memories sang out in cheerful, ghostly voices. She stood up immediately and pushed the trap door away with a snarl rather than a grunt. Reentering the chilly, wet air, she unfurled her wings like a warrior, and took to the skies.

Fluttershy weaved between trees with the speed of a Royal Guard and the agility of a Wonderbolt. All the while, five faint voices resonated in the back of her head, pushing her forward and gnawing at her heart. When the tears came, she knew not the cause. Was it the speed? The stench of the morning air? The pain of her memories? Or could it have been the joy of them?

After what felt like miles, she noticed a tree on her right with a poorly-carved butterfly etched in its trunk. Immediately, she set her wings straight out to her sides and glided to the ground. Her hooves touched down and she scurried into the bushes. She listened, her ears perked as straight and tall as the spires of the old Canterlot Palace. Gentle gusts graced her ears, but their messages were silent. She crawled out of the bushes, stood, and cautously walked back to the tree, her head on a swivel.

She recognized the marking right away. It was her own. When she had settled into the cave by the pond, she had taken to carving a butterfly in the adjacent trees to serve as a beacon if she were ever fleeing on hoof. She knew that somewhere off to her right and just a few steps through the thick brush, she would find her home. _Perfect_, she thought with a toothy grin and a soft squeak. _Absolutely perfect_. Fluttershy surveyed her surroundings and, after she was sure that the coast was clear, began to claw her way through the dense batch of briars bushes and rotten, fallen limbs and trees.

Once she was in the clearing she made a beeline for the cave—she didn't even stop at the pond to cool her sweltered tongue. The thorns of the briars clawed into her skin like a hundred angry cats, but she didn't whimper nor flinch. As soon as the dense darkness of the cave's mouth came into view, she lept through, losing strands of her mane and tail in the process. She sprinted down the pitch black corridor, her heavy hoofsteps creating a deafening cacophony, and crawled through the keyhole.

She set her sights on it as soon as she entered the room—she didn't bother turning on the lights. She practically glided over to her bed, sliding on her knees the last few feet. "Please... please..." she droned to herself as she rummaged under her bed like a foal looking for their piggy bank. She tossed aside tattered banners and frayed rope and waterlogged books and cracked gems and a single pair of lensless goggles. Then, just as she began to welcome the idea that it was a hopeless search, she found what she had been digging for. It took all her effort to keep her chattering from biting the handle of the silver dagger in two. She had found it while exploring the western wing of the Canterlot Archives: military history. Though it was simply laying amongst ruined brochures and broken glass and countless piles of ash, she knew what it was; the emblem of the Pegasonian Empire on its handle told the story.

There was a loud clatter as her holster hit the floor. With the grace of a dressmaker threading a needle, she took out her hoofmade dagger—one of the closest things she'd had to a companion in years—and replaced it with Commander Hurricane's still finely-sharpened blade. With a sigh, she rose to her hooves and walked out of the cave. Once she was outside, she flared her wings, burst through the canopy, and shot towards the city's scorched remains.

* * *

Even after all these years, black plumes of smoke still filled the air above the city. How long had it been anyway? Fluttershy had tried to keep track of the days by scratching tally marks on her cave's walls, but gave up countless seasons ago—not even the ceilings and floors were left unscathed. She could still tell when the seasons changed, but she hardly paid them any mind; time had long since become just another pointless factor.

The city's ruined skyline stretched on across the horizon, the numerous structures in various stages of decay. Some were simply falling apart with time: windows and walls were blown out, skyscrapers listed precariously so, and vegetation strangled all it could, climbing crumpled stone pillars and taking hold in the city's exposed guts. Other buildings were less fortunate, having whole faces felled into the streets or just having collapsed entirely, a lucky few leaving nothing behind but iron skeletons protruding from the rubble. Thick, ominous smoke steadily poured from the debris, poisoning the air. Fluttershy wondered if any of the original fires had even died.

Fluttershy stood on the edge of the woods and stared at the city: her salvation, her doom. She sighed. It was too late to turn around now. A couple dozen yards down the slope from where she stood, was a sign—broken in half—that read: "Welcome to..." The last part was completely faded, buried beneath ash.

Taking one final look back at the woods, she spread her wings and took to the sky, soaring as best she could towards her fate.

The skyscrapers welcomed her like ravenous wolves: looming, swaying, their joints creaking in the unyielding wind. The entire city reeked of death and ruin, and the air was filled with so much ash that it might as well have been snowing. She tried to ignore the stench and the ash's constant assaults, but one can only take so much. These might have once been ponies she had known and loved. Bile built in her throat and her wings began to lock up at the very thought. She practically plummeted to the ground, landing atop yet more ash, stumbled, and found herself face-down in a mound of the infernal soot. She coughed, her lungs burning as the dust filled her lungs. She whimpered and wiped at the hot tears streaming down her face. Eventually, she was able to clear her airway and she forced herself up with a grunt, hobbling forward. In her past, she would have cowered right then and there: curled into a ball and cried until He had shown up and done her in. But not anymore; that Fluttershy had died with everything else.

She wandered the nameless streets, a vague image of where they would lead shimmering in her mind's eye. The greenhouse was near the center of the city, or at least what she considered the center of the city. If memory served her correct, all the desolate roads converged near it. Step by step she pushed herself onwards, the dust and stagnant puddles stinging her cracked hooves. She closed her eyes and felt her extremities grow warm and weightless. Her blood pumped faster and faster, her heart burning but never alighting. In the back of her mind, five ghostly voices whispered, pushing her on and calming her mind.

As she walked, the world closed tighter around her, as if she were walking through a narrowing tunnel towards a light that she couldn't trust. It could've been sunlight at the end of the tunnel, or a freight train barreling her way. It didn't matter much; both led straight to death anyway. She simply kept moving and silently wished that when death came it would be quick.

The deeper she trekked into the city, the more time weighed down on her. Totaled carriages with faded advertisements for a concert: an earth pony holding a cello just barely visible through the cracked paint—the name escaped Fluttershy, but she'd seen that face. She stumbled over broken flower pots, fallen streetlamps, decayed dolls with raggedy manes, scorched banners, rusted blades and dented, corroded armor and… bones. She grimaced and sidestepped around them, but marched forward—crying over any of it was pointless now. A soft breeze whistled past her, carrying with it what she swore were voices. The pit in her stomach grew deeper and hollower, but she kept her sobs at bay—they'd only fall on deaf ears.

Hopping over a fallen streetlight, she came to a toppled skyscraper. She craned her neck back until she could hear her ligaments stretching. It was large, unsafe, and it was blocking her way. Letting out a little whiny, she looked around. The ruined structure covered the entire street, and the alleyways to her sides were both filled with piles of debris as tall—if not taller—than the collapsed tower. Not to mention, they would only lead her farther away from her destination. All she had to do was fly over the ruins, and she'd be home free. Sighing what felt like the thousandth sigh, she spread her wings, and slowly lifted herself over it.

As she crested the peak of the ruined metal, she saw the greenhouse off in the distance. Her wings locked for a split second at the sight, and she fell upon a rusted beam with a clank and a whimper. Legs shaking, she rose to her hooves. Some psychotic voice in the back of her head told her to look down. She did just that. Her pupils shrunk to specks as she stared into the metallic chasm. One of her trembling hooves knocked a corroded bolt head into the abyss, and she listened to it fall, its pings growing softer until they stopped altogether. Gulping, she forced her gaze away from the hole and towards the greenhouse.

Standing atop the fallen colossus, she choked, her throat feeling like a python had wrapped around it. Another gust rushed by, trying to push her balance away from her. The wind was growing stronger, and she swore it was growling. Dark shadows surrounded the house of shattered glass, the closest thing to salvation she had come across in what felt like lifetimes. When her wings moved again, she had no control of them. When her legs started to move in cadence, she did not tell them to take a single step. When she stopped in its shadow and fell back on her haunches, it was simply reflex.

A dark wind blew Fluttershy's mane in her face. Shards of glass fell loose from the ruined sills, showering the withered stems jutting from the broken windows. A dead, brown leaf floated out of the house and onto her nose; Fluttershy could feel her hope being blown further and further out of reach.

If she crept inside there, she might find refuge. But for how long? A year? A month? A week? A matter of days? What was she going to do after the food was gone? And if she only found more dead plants and useless flowers, what then?

Ruin was imminent and inevitable.

The wind blew once more. Her ears perked. Maybe she was going mad, but she swore she heard voices—five distinct voices—underneath it. She looked around her, finding nothing but desolation. No ponies—no source for the voices. It was just an illusion—her thought's dying song. _Five... why is it always five? Why does it..._

Her eyes widened as a spark ignited.

She stood up and trudged over the fallen door. As soon as she entered the land of brown shrubs, the growl poured forth. In the blink of an eye, the dagger was in her mouth, held firmly and ready to bite. Her lips curved upward around the handle. She couldn't remember the last time she had done something so quickly. Rainbow Dash would have been proud. Rainbow Dash _was_ proud.

Her gaze darted around the room, her ears perked. She was waiting for a gunshot, a tiger leaping from the brush, her death. But she would be damned if she went down silently. She looked left, right, above her, below her, behind her, waiting, blood pumping, teeth gritted, legs shaking, wings fluttering, tears streaming, brain screaming, everything crying out at once as the world collapsed upon her, pushed into her heart like a star about to go supernova. It was about to burst—everything was about to explode. The end would come regardless.

Amidst the blinding fear and the wails of every sound that had ever been, she heard the sound of cracking glass. On instinct, she whipped her head around. A shadow flew at her, slamming into her. Warm liquid spurted across her face and chest. The greenhouse was painted a darkest crimson. For a single second, every particle in the world screamed.

And then there was only the wind.

Fluttershy lay on her back, chest rising and falling. He lay on top of her, gurgling and writhing. She pushed Him off and rose to her haunches. As she sat up, she stole one look at His face, and her blood froze in its veins.

She looked into the eyes of a pony. Not a monster, a _pony_. He stared up at her with callous eyes as His bloody mouth opened and closed, gasping for air while blood spurted out around the dagger firmly embedded in His throat. Blood spurted out with it, running down onto the floor. She had severed everything, and for that she was thankful. At least it meant that it would be quicker and less painful, much unlike hers. He reached a hoof up and grabbed her foreleg, snapping His teeth and trying to lift Himself up. Fluttershy placed a hoof on top of His head and pushed it back to the ground and smiled. Then she scooted across the floor, through the blood, and lifted His head in her forelegs. Slowly, she ran a hoof through His mane and hummed a soft tune.

In spite of everything, He was still a pony, and all ponies deserved to die in kind hooves. His ravenous, yellow eyes set on her sympathetic ones, and Fluttershy swore she saw a flash of something in them: a flash of thanks, sanity, and love.

And then, like everything else, it was gone, replaced by an all too familiar glassy veil.

She continued to cradle Him even after His chest stopped moving and His body grew cold. When she finally laid His head back onto the equally dead ground, she was sobbing. He may have tried to kill her, He may have been a cold blooded predator, He may have done a lot of things, but He was still a pony. Everypony deserved to be mourned.

It took hours for her tears to stop flowing. When they did, she could hardly tell which way was up. She rose onto her quavering hooves and looked around through foggy eyes. They only fell on dead brush and wilted petals. Her eyes were dry of tears and her chest burned like the long-gone sun, but she wept nonetheless. All this had been for nothing. She guessed that it was fitting; karma didn't have to move fast to catch up with her. She had just killed a pony, so she deserved no better a fate. With a sigh, she began to shuffle out of the greenhouse. She wondered how long it would take her to starve. A day or two? Would she last weeks? She was a murderer, so she guessed that her punishment would be severe: slowly withering away, feeling her stomach shrink and her bones rot.

It was as she was pondering what it would feel like to shrivel up like a sponge in a bonfire that she saw it.

A single pot of morning glories: purple and violet and pink and blue and white and orange. And just off to the side, on a straight and healthy stem, was a yellow bud. She sniffed the flowers, stared at them, worshiped them, and they sang back and showered her.

There was still hope, there would always be hope. Maybe she'd find flowers someplace else. Maybe another field she had looked over, maybe over the mountains, or maybe even somewhere across the sea. And if there were no more flowers anywhere else... well, she was only going to take it one step at a time. A pony never knows what's truly on the other side of a door until they walk through it.

She stood up straight, ran her hoof through the flowers as delicately as she could muster, and walked out the door. She had no idea where she was going to go or what she was going to do, but she had made it this far on improvisation alone. She'd find a way. She spread her wings and took to the air.

A dark wind blew, and Fluttershy rode it.


End file.
